CAN you help Valerie find Mr Wright of Runcorn? Or maybe you're the real John Smith she wants to have a drink and a catch up with?

These surnames sum up the difficulty of the task facing the Brookvale teacher trying to track down a long lost half brother she's never met.

"I just don't want him to think that no-one wants to know him," the 53-year-old says of her half-brother John who she first heard about three years ago when her mother died.

"It's complicated but we're a big family - I've got five sisters and a brother - and we each felt differently about it.

"But I really want to meet him and so do some of my sisters.

"I've been told his surname is Smith or Wright - typical I know - but he's definitely living in Runcorn."

Valerie says her father, a sailor in the merchant navy, had an affair with a woman in Halewood after the family moved there from Toxteth, South Liverpool.

"We had an idea about it when we were all growing up but it was always whispered, never talked about," says Valerie, who now lives in Grappenhall.

"When my dad, also called John, married my mum Louisa, they had lots of daughters until they had my younger brother David.

"Mum was always pregnant - it was like he was on a quest for a son.

"I think she knew about Dad's affair but she never said anything to anyone. She took that secret to her grave."

Valerie says any apparent resentment towards her half-brother from some of her other siblings could have been caused by her hard-working father's generosity in continuing to support his mistress and son.

"There were lots of us and dad was a seaman so there wasn't much money but he kept paying maintenance to John all the way through even though we were struggling," she says.

"He'll be in his mid-50s now and might have kids like my brother David has.

"I could even be teaching his kids, my nephews or nieces, without realising it!"